Building The Dream - Design

When the opportunity to build our first home together came to us we were blown away with the amazing opportunity we had and quickly became extremely excited with all the ideas of what we could do – and some were ridiculous when we look back on it now e.g. a passive house with a basement which we presumed would only cost €150k…. then reality hit us with a slap in the face!!

We didn’t have anyone in our circle of friends or family who had built a house before so we weren’t really sure as to how to go about designing a house, but I think we did a good job considering and here are a few tips that I have picked up along the way.

Go Snooping

We always had an idea of what we wanted the inside of our house to look like but we were really unsure of what we wanted the outside to be. We found ourselves driving around lovely housing estates looking at houses to find some inspiration. We actually found a house in Glasnevin that we both loved the shape of and took a sneaky picture of it to pass on to our architect at the time and we got it copied and drawn up in our plans.

Like It, List It

We sat down together and talked about what we both really wanted from our home and what we thought we would need from the house in the future as we want this house to be a home for life - I am not going through all this again!! We both wanted an open plan living area, the master bedroom in the attic and three double bedrooms. Unfortunately, the four bedrooms didn’t work out as the attic roof was designed too low so we have lost a bedroom and the open plan living area wasn’t as big as we had hoped for, but we’ve gotten over it and its worked out perfect for our budget and our needs.

Become A Pinterest Addict

I am well and truly a Pinterest addict if you have not guessed yet! Going through Pinterest and finding pins that reflect the home you would love is a great way of finding inspiration when designing. I found the style of kitchen we were looking for so we could show it to our kitchen designer and our style of bathroom that we could show our builder and get quoted and designs for both.

Ask Around

I decided to ask family and friends if they would have anything in their house what would it be. My mam was a great help in this, she gave me some great ideas like having lots of storage or having a large utility room. It was great to get ideas from home owners on if there were given this opportunity what would they do.

Become A Couch Potato

I absolutely love watching home shows on TV, Grand Designs, Room To Improve, Love It or List It…. I just can’t get enough of them and they are great for finding inspiration. Shows like these also help you realise the pit falls of building and that the worst really can happen.

Use and Abuse

Show Homes, restaurants, hotels and offices pay for interior designers to kit out their spaces so they are great places to find some inspiration so visit as many as you can to use the design available. I spent lots of time going to show houses to get different ideas on how to design a house and to also get some interior design ideas.

Finally…..

Go to Chic & Cheerful’s blogs, Facebook page and Instagram account to find lots of tips, tricks and inspiration.